Astroturfing in American English is a neologism for formal public relations campaigns in politics and advertising which seek to create the impression of being spontaneous "grassroots" behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass, AstroTurf.

The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event.

Does anyone really think that some of the commenters here are paid representatives of any political campaign or cause? It seems to me that there are many self-appointed boosters of one candidate or another, willing to put in a lot of effort for no pay. I've seen the comments of the particular individual who was accused of astrotrolling, but I can't believe a campaign would pay someone just to post numerous boring/abusive comments. Wouldn't the campaign hire someone competent who would blend in with the style of the blog comments section, seem like a real person, and slip in strong pithy arguments?

The real AstroTurf™ is green, not orange. The real Althouse astrotroll should be offbeat, funny, and smart -- with a memorable pseudonym and some personal details. Up your game if you're getting paid.

IN THE COMMENTS: Paddy O. quotes my questions -- "Wouldn't the campaign hire someone competent who would blend in with the style of the blog comments section, seem like a real person, and slip in strong pithy arguments?" -- and says "You miss Titus, don't you?" Well, let me ask you people:

144 comments:

Here is my theory. It's based on the fact that you drive certain far-left-leaning people insane.

I really believe that there are leftist sites and blogs out there where people say to each other, "Did you see what that Althouse said? Her! A law professor!" And they bitch about you among each other. Then, random mercenaries come over and post. This theory explains the weird commonalities in the arguments and the language used by people who post once and never get heard from again.

As for the Astrotroller in question, I really don't know. He does copy and paste a lot of stuff into threads that has nothing at all to do with the threads, which annoys me to no end. He's certainly on a mission. He's only been around this election season. On the other hand, I would think that moderates and neutrals would find him comically unconvincing. If he is getting paid, it's money poorly spent (like the Obama ad at nationalreview.com I once saw).

"It seems to me that there are many self-appointed boosters of one candidate or another, willing to put in a lot of effort for no pay."

That's the part of the astroturfing charge that I don't understand. People are (for better and worse) more than willing to sink time and money into defending their candidate or tearing down the other one because they feel that they have skin in the game even if they're not being paid.

I think mainly it's just used as an insult to delegitimize and dismiss the targeted comment as something no sensible person would write unless they were being paid. I think Hanlon's razor applies.

your leftie trolls can't be the astro variety. Their talking points are fairly lame, and not well organized. If I were hiring astrotrolls, I would look for folks with better cognitive and writing skills. You know, like a professional ad agency, The Winner folks.

On the other hand, if I were Obama's folks and had allowed Axelrod to subcontract the work, maybe somebody decided to skim or scrimp and sent the work the ACORN.

Your trolls seem like ACORN material. Loud, obnoxious, not very effective, and cheap.

While you are probably correct, Ann, that a campaign paid troll would be a bit more sophisticated in their methods, it is not hard to believe that the Obama campaign would deliberately seek to use their passionate supporters to wreak as much mayhem as possible on influential blogs that don't fully support Obama.

The "Astrotroll" that you are referring to in the previous post may or may not be paid, but he:

1. does sprout the current Democrat talking points of that day.

2. primarily comments for the purpose of attacking both you and other commenters, not to actually engage in a real issue discussion. The particular troll in question is viscious in his attacks.

For an organization lie Obama's that seeks to control the conversation by any means necessary - witness the recent use of the police to bear down on people who disagree with Obama in Missouri, and the quarantee of a reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine if Obama wins - it is not surprising to find people like your astrotroll here on a forum that actually encourages discussion and insight.

And another thing. Here's the problem with this astrotroller: by posting a series of asinine paste jobs and off-topic rants, he takes the good momentum out of a thread and turns it to crap, to use the image of the day. It's really very sadly disruptive.

There is also the troll that *wants to be* a paid campaign worker. It is a long shot, they know, but they will still go around posting and trolling in hope that someone high in the campaign ladder will notice their "commendable efforts" and reward him/her...somehow.

And we can't forget the "idealistic" troll, the bored trust-fund baby with an English or generic BA major (no offense to those with same qualifications but different attitude) who desperately wants to give his/her life some kind of "meaning". There is also the lone ugly geek that desperately needs a sense of belonging, and the very sad and bitter one that deep down wants to be within a "movement" that will help them exercise revenge on a world that has been unfair to them, instead of doing something to change the reasons why the world has treated him/her like that.

Madison -- Do you not admit that the freaky weird annoying people virtually all come from the left? There's that anti-Semite Cedarford, of course, but even he is cordial enough to only post occasionally.

ernie, I would say that Peter V. Bella and alex (or is it Alex? -- can't remember) might fit. Neither wastes an opportunity to slam the candidate who is not their chosen one to the point of tedium. Although I recall Peter posting in non-political threads, which to my mind might disqualify him, all though to quote the great John Cleese, he might be astrotrolling in his spare time.

Seven machos, you can claim cedarford is a lefty. I'll have to take your word for it, I never read what he says. Not crisp. Yes, there are plenty of weirdos from the left -- but not exclusively.

Sadly, I cannot in good conscience claim that Cedarford is a lefty. I must not have been clear. I'm admitting that there are nutty righties, like Cedarford, but the nutty lefties are far more common.

I usually skip right Cedarford's tomes as well. I do commend him for posting all his thoughts in one piece, though. I also happen to know that, like a good German, he is for national health care. That's just one of the many reasons I excommunicate him from my side. I know you don't want him.

Two things. If the lefty troller in question is not good enough to get paid, then I think it is fair to say some of the righty commenters are so insipid that it is impossible to think they are getting paid.

Also, although some commenters from the right may be mindless and incivil shills they have been accepted into the community of commenters and, therefore, cannot be considered trolls (maybe a new term 'astrocommenter' is needed or a similar term already exists).

Come on, Beth. There's an infinite chasm between you and the commenter(s) at issue. Sure, you're woefully wrong. But you are witty. Your stay on topic. Your posts have depth and layers. You'll post about fried chicken.

Since Pat Buchanan isn't running for President, I don't know who would be paying for Cedarford.

* * *

Astrotroller, as a word, looks odd. For a minute I thought Ann was questioning the invasion of her comments sections by paid Astrologers (she did just dis' them).

But even correcting for that, astrotroller shimmers on the page like a little piece of op art. The word shape is confusing. One second it looks like astrotroller. The next it looks like astrostroller, the Jetson's perambulator.

Say it aloud and twists on the tongue, the "tro-tro" stuttering in the middle like a fragment of onamatapoeia. It is the sound of the slop bucket dumped over the side of the fishing boat.

"Does anyone really think that some of the commenters here are paid representatives of any political campaign or cause?"

Yes, I do. Some people we had never seen before started posting a lot two weeks ago. They started with the typical "I am a (insert right leaning sub group here) and I have voted Republican all my life but the (insert typical conservative issues here) has me voting for Obama." Then they just stick to putting talking points into their posts ad nauseum.

MadisonMan is a regular, and while consistelntly liberal, will post things that are not political because he is a member of our community.

I am not sure if AlphaLiberal ever posts off politics, but he too has been here for ever. Beth (or Elizabeth depending on the day) is a real human being as well.

The astroturfers are not so hard to spot, and I have never seen a conservative astroturfer or never recognized one here.

IMAO had a post about the trolls a week or so ago. I'm not conspiratorial enough to think that it's a concerted effort to disrupt the political process. Obama's strategy is much higher up in that regard. I think it's just a case of maturity. Lefties are children, easily ruffled. Righties laugh it off, and head off to work, hunt, or some other productive venture.

The first amendment violators are consistently lefties, so it is reasonable to assume that they will extend their fascism to discussion boards on the Internet.

Come on, Beth. You know the difference between a lefty commenter and a troll. There are plenty of people who post silly lefty and silly righty and silly non-partisan ideas here that aren't trolls and never get called trolls. Yet you keep pretending, ever since I first called this troll a troll, that it's used as a tactic here to shut disagreement down. Trollery is not an issue of ideology, it's an issue of style.

No, the astrotrollers (hate the word) here are not paid operatives. They're the lame ones who pick up the talking points provided by the real paid operatives.

Somebody will drop a juicy talking point over at DU or Huffington that suddenly makes it all clear to the troll. That troll then wittingly (but for free) goes and drops turds in blogs perceived to be, if not conservative, then non-left.

They are what the astroturfers are paid to produce: human bots that spam the Internet.

madison man,how crisp do you want yer comments...i mean, mine are pretty well toastedaltho they can get soggy just like mom'senglish muffins when they fall behindthe stove yum

anyway i try to be offbeat, etcand i do have to confess that i've beenemployed by a campaignyes, i was the cambridge, masschair insect of cockroaches for hillarybut now it's over and i have no axes to grind

i don't even think too badly of sarah palinshe's definitely smarter than alicewho lives under the sinkbut alice only has 960 brain cellsso i'm wondering what is mrs palin's excuse

The McCain campaign! They are paying me to pretend to be an Obama supporter. They only ask that I call everyone racist and make fun of the Mavericks time as a POW in order to rile up his base to turn out on election day.

My comments a few weeks ago about Sara Palin's baby was part and parcel to this strategy, I must have driven at least a few undecided into the republican camp with those inflamatory comments.

I notice when Michael, for example, is touting some new revelation, a search for his source usually turns up pages of LW blogs all repeating variations of the story. Usually, few have links to the original source, which is sometimes difficult to track down. When I do track the source down, there is usually a misquote, misinterpretation or outright falsehood at the beginning.

BTW, I agree that Michael seems a lot like Lucky Old Son. Same surliness and serial postings.

Wouldn't the campaign hire someone competent who would blend in with the style of the blog comments section, seem like a real person, and slip in strong pithy arguments?

Careful, you might send him away and your traffic will drop off sharply. There is a huge contingent of regulars that spend their entire day frenetically responding. They'd only have each other to agree with and sadly that tends to make blogs boring.

"Astrotroller" is just another label like "racist!", "anti-Semite!", "Chinese-hater!", "sexist" used to de-legitimize people that have open questions about the wisdom of various policies.

Maybe "astrotrolling" HAD to arise because Godwin's Law and eyerolling is now being evoked by the public whenever they hear the old 60-40 year-old smears being used at almost every occasion to attack positions they disagree with.

It logically follows the "modern" trend to de-legitimize by accusing the opposition being "in the pay of George Soros" or "anti-Algore scientists are in the employ of Big Oil".

madisonman - I agree, Alex is a troll. Peter V. Bella, not so sure. Certainly a party-line purveyor, but I don't know if he does it on anyone's payroll.

Palladian, I'll defer to your absolute moral authority on troll spotting! (well, probably not.) And really, it's not you I mean when I complain about how loosely the term is used here. If I recall, the troll thread you're referring to turned into a major league bitchfest, so it stands out in memory. But there are times the word is thrown around to mean "stop disagreeing with us. We're having a wonderful echo party and you're screwing it up."

Told you so. That guy is a cancer. You need to cut him now before he cause any more trouble.

One of my best friends Tony is a hard core Saints fan and we always go to Giants staduim when the Saints are in town. So I think I have seen more Saints games live than any other team other than the Giants.

Beth said... [...] But there are times the word is thrown around to mean "stop disagreeing with us. We're having a wonderful echo party and you're screwing it up."

10:33 AM

I have never really seen that, not from the people to whom you are attributing it at least. I have seen irate and/or sarcastic reactions to non-sensical hyper-partisan offensive and intentionally hurtful comments, however. Please do correct me if I am wrong, and I would appreciate an example or two.

Trooper's command of pop culture and artful timing in placing pertinent lyrics and dialogue definitely win him a place in the top 5 posters here.

Titus was a puzzle. Entertaining, annoyingly so, and impossible to figure out how serious to take him. Was he real or a fantasy someone created? Pure entertainment. I haven't been very active lately, but noticed that he's been missing.

I doubt that anyone in here will be swayed by anything said in here. We use this place to spar with each other. It's one of the only places where somewhat civil discourse unfolds. The trolls, both flavors, annoy both sides.

I realize now that there was only one Titus, but his style changed (and became unfunny) so I thought it was a fake. He did not appreciate my attempt at protecting his brand and went away in a huff.

Anyway, sorry the "no" answer has a different text when you click for results. The text at the point where you answer is obviously the relevant one. Pollcode was not functioning properly today and it kept dropping an answer. I was trying to have both answers possible.

Imagine how effective it would be if Simon were to suddenly have serious doubts about Palin's fitness to serve, and then used that to question McCain's judgment?

Uh, no effect at all?

Come on folks. There's a few dozen of us that post consistently and argue about the same damn things over and over. We've all made up our minds. At most we'd vote write-in before voting for the other guy. (Had McCain picked Huckabee, I was planning on doing exactly that. Then again, I live in Utah where it doesn't freaking matter.)

I have met lefties and have puzzled at their predilection for socialism. You my dear are no troll but you are a hater. You and Trooper are just Cowboy haters and that's why people don't like either of you. Well, the Cowboys lost so enjoy your little hate fest for now but come the new year there will be a new super team and their leader will be named Tony. But I do admire Drew Brees, a good Texas boy, who was shunned by The University of Texas and the Chargers and made it big anyway.

Greatest two wideouts from my youth, Otis Taylor and Paul Warfield. Abramowitz was the best player on lousy Saints teams during a period when they were incredibly bad but he wasn't in their class

The toughest person to deal with on the Jetson’s was actually Astro. I mean the fact that George was a sex addict was disturbing enough. We had to hush up a lot things he used to do. He used his celebrity to bang his way through cartoon Hollywood. I mean George did Wilma and Betty in a three way, Betty Boop and Penelope Pittstop. He knocked up Velma and had to pay for her abortion. But Astro was even more of a problem. He loved to make obscene phone calls and wrote terrible nasty letters to various political leaders. He was lucky to avoid getting arrested for all the shit he pulled. Of course now he spends all of his time posting on the internet as a troll. In fact they named a type of troll after him. It’s the only thing that keeps him busy other than the job Karl Rove hired him to do for President Bush. He sits just out of the camera’s range and whenever Bush says something stupid he says “Ruh-roh, Reorge.”(Joseph Barbera and William Hanna, The E True Hollywood Story of the Jetsons)

Actually, spamming works. Simply posting something factual or mildly interesting once in a while will not have the impact of posting the same thing 1000 times. That's the nature of human beings and the internet.

Just the fact we're talking about this person proves that. The trouble with the internet is that it rewards sheer volume more than almost anything else. The best bloggers not only put out good posts, but lots of posts as well.

People want something to read, and will sacrifice quality for quantity more than for other mediums.

you know if you say something nice aboutanother commenter, people think you're a sockpuppet

but how could i be a socketpuppetwith an exoskeleton and allso i want to say something nice about anothercommenter who is low key and unsung but funnyand that's meadewho i'd like to see more ofespecially when he and bissage do garden talkyou guys should have a radio showeverybody's sick of cars anyway

peter hoe said: "To work, a campaign ought to hire someone who has usually supported the other side. Imagine how effective it would be if Simon were to suddenly have serious doubts about Palin's fitness to serve, and then used that to question McCain's judgment?"

Now that you mention it, maybe Palin is pretty much a bimbo and McCain pretty much a mad bomber. I've always been a super-Republican from my head down to my toenails, but I'm beginning to rethink my unexamined assumptions as a result of this election campaign and all the atrocious mistakes made by this administration over the last 8 years.

I think Simon's right. I've been a staunch independent for all of my voting life but as the days go by it's more and more clear that Obama has what it takes to lead America through hope straight into change, and change is where we all need to be. McCain's candidacy can only lead us to years of strife and toil and with the influence of Sarah Palin, the most evil Christianist to be nominated to a major party ticket since the last election (national, state or local, it's up to you), McCain will also lead us further down the corridor toward theocracy since the last Republican did that. It took a lot of soul-searching to come to realize that Barack Obama is the one I've been waiting for, and its taken a lot of courage to write it here, but I endorse Barack Obama in the upcoming election.

On a side note, I got very thirsty while typing this so I was glad that when I went to the fridge, I had a bottle of Perrier water to wet my palate with its blend of refreshing purity and subtle carbonation.

"Astrotrollers" are the political cousins of "pumpers" and "bashers" on stock market message boards like Yahoo. Who knows if pumpers and bashers are paid. I think many are just daytraders. Althouse is right-a real astrotroller would try hard to look genuine, and thus more convincing, while feeding opinion.

I doubt the accused poster on the Brokaw thread is an "astroturfer". I stopped taking him seriously weeks ago after Revenant called his bluff late one night. Others have also done so.

I think Simon's right. I've been a staunch independent for all of my voting life but as the days go by it's more and more clear that Obama has what it takes to lead America through hope straight into change, and change is where we all need to be.

1. I've never used a fake name here. I do have the screen name "Alizaria" on Metafilter, where I occasionally post, and years ago, I used to post on AOL as Alizaria. Other than that, I've never written under a pseudonym anywhere.

2. Titus is losing in that poll, but who among you would like to see yourself voted on? Which commenters here would stand the test?

I can't even stand my comments myself. Effin' bastard. I vote myself off the Althouse island every few days, but I never can seem to take the hint. I even pantsed myself once, but a clue? I didn't have one.

So I just don't even talk to myself anymore, and look away to avoid my eye contact.

I doubt that anyone in here will be swayed by anything said in here. We use this place to spar with each other. It's one of the only places where somewhat civil discourse unfolds. The trolls, both flavors, annoy both sides.

Actually, spamming works. Simply posting something factual or mildly interesting once in a while will not have the impact of posting the same thing 1000 times. That's the nature of human beings and the internet.

This is true. This is the whole basis of the Anthropomorphic Global Warming "argument". Even as the world gets cooler. Just repeat that it's getting hotter and hotter and it's all man's fault, and people will believe.

The only one here actually paid to push partisan spin (in this case, anti-Obama stuff, such as Althouse pushing the right-wing blogosphere's propaganda on Obama's bracelet yesterday) is Althouse, who is paid in a steady flow of links from high-traffic web sites such as InstaPundit.

In the comments of the bracelet story Althouse demands an apology from AlphaLiberal, claiming that her link is to a site providing a range of opinions regarding the bracelet story from across the political spectrum. This is not true at all. Her link takes people exclusively to the right-wing blogosphere's spin on the story. Which turned out to be a lie.

Crap like that raises eyebrows of people who thought this was trying to be a non-partisan site, and it makes the right-wing commenters feel this is their home and anyone else is a troll. It also ensures more Instalanches in the future, which for Althouse is more money in her pocket.

Loafing Oaf, you don't seem to understand Memeorandum, which I linked to for the bracelet story. It collects links on a much-discussed story in an automatic and nonpartisan way. Linking to that was the most neutral possible way to set up a post to discuss that story, so you are flat wrong and you owe me an apology. The only reason all the links go to right-wing sites is that no left wing sites of sufficient stature are talking about the subject. There's nothing else to like to. Get it?

I doubt whether Althouse has seen the way things are done at Digg. It basically consists of a smear from HuffPost or similar being posted, and then a series of mindless "jokes" and the like are posted in comments. Those are dugg up. And, those who come in and point out that falsity of the article are dugg down so people have to click a link to see them. That helps the smear spread: if there are any contrary arguments on the first page many people don't see them.

I'm not saying these people are getting paid, but digg.com/users/IrishJoe, digg.com/users/psy333che, and their friends seem to spend an awful lot of time in support of BHO.

Something similar happens at the WaPo blogs and Politico: an endless stream of pro-BHO/anti-McCain comments that drown out the rest.

There's also this, this, and this. As described at the first, BHO's chief strategist owns a company that engages in such behavior.

Ann Althouse said... "The only reason all the links go to right-wing sites is that no left wing sites of sufficient stature are talking about the subject."

That's something I find fascinating watcing memeorandum - usually, there will be a top-level story with a list of either left or right blogs talking about it. Sometimes, you'll see a top-level story with two or three second-level stories, each that have blogs from one side linking to it. It seems most unusual to see left and right blogs linking to the same story, or even to different iterations of the same story. The two blogospheres move on almost entirely different tracks - it's not that they start from the same point and reach different conclusions, they each talk about entirely different stuff.

it collects links on a much-discussed story in an automatic and nonpartisan way. Linking to that was the most neutral possible way to set up a post to discuss that story, so you are flat wrong and you owe me an apology. The only reason all the links go to right-wing sites is that no left wing sites of sufficient stature are talking about the subject. There's nothing else to like to. Get it?

No, I don't get it. For example, DailyKos had a main page post on the story last night written by Kos himself - not sufficient enough stature?

I don't know Memeorandum, but my guess would be that all the right wing blogs linked to the highly biased, unfair Newsbusters story and thus got compiled. The blogs that responded to that "scandal" in defense of Obama probably didn't wanna link to Newsbusters.

Whatever the case, linking to Memeorandum in that instance didn't work to serve your neutrality, only served to help circulate an unfair attack on Obama, and you should've corrected for that with an update as the real facts emerged.

Note to self: Try to be a little kinder to cockroaches. Is it their fault that they are one of the most commonly noted household pest insects, feeding on human and pet food and leaving an offensive odor? Sure they can also passively transport microbes on their body surfaces including those that are potentially dangerous to humans, particularly in environments such as hospitals. So what that cockroach infestations have been shown to be linked with allergic reactions in humans and that one of these allergens has also been found to be linked with asthma? Is it their fault that some of the earliest writings with regards to cockroaches encouraged their use as medicine, that Pedanius Dioscorides (1st century), Kamal al-Din al-Damiri and Abu Hanifa ad-Dainuri (9th century) all offered medicines that suggested either grinding them up with oil or boiling them and that the list of ailments to be treated included earaches, open wounds and "gynecological disorders?" No. Maybe they ARE the scum of the earth. So what? Someone has to be. Is that their fault? Some are fans of the New England Patriots? Well, okay, but it isn't their fault that they are insects.